“Robin Williams feels great guilt over his condition”

Six years ago, the body of comedian Robin Williams was found in his home in a small town near San Francisco. He was 63 at the time of his death and the cause of death was soon revealed to everyone – suicide. The news stunned fans and the media in astonishment, and everyone tried to decipher what made the beloved and successful man end his life. Many rumors about his mental and financial condition began to spread, and almost everyone seemed to have their own theory for the cause of the suicide.

“People kept guessing what happened to Robin: claiming he was depressed, that he went back to doing drugs and maybe went bankrupt,” says Taylor Norwood, director of the documentary “The Wish for Robin,” which follows the last two years of Williams’ life. “Since there was no real answer to his act, people and journalists simply guessed. But none of what was alleged was true. It turns out that Robin had a terminal brain disease, which was not discovered until after his death – dementia of Gofi Levy.”

It is a disease that is difficult to diagnose and may be why Williams’ doctors did not detect it in time. “It’s a form of Parkinson’s and it has symptoms like hallucinations, memory and concentration disorders, behavioral changes, difficulty walking and balance, confusion and inability to understand reality. Robin did not know he was suffering from this disease. Until the last minute he thought he was suffering from something he could fix through Work hard, or delve into and solve the problems. He did endless tests and meditations and went to the psychiatrist four times a week to try and figure out what he had. One day he asked the doctor if he had schizophrenia. When the doctor said he had Parkinson’s, Robin insisted: ‘You sure do not. Do I have schizophrenia? ‘. The doctor waved him off and said,’ No, you’s fine. ‘ “The most obvious thing in the world. The doctor who treated him, for some reason, just missed out. Unfortunately, this is a disease about which not much is known.”

Someone like Robin Williams was supposed to get the best care possible. No?

“One of the things that happens when you are a doctor who treats someone like Robin Williams is that you get stressed. I learned while working on my film that many celebrities do not get the best medical care because many doctors do not want to tell them bad news. There is a lot of pressure on doctors to broadcast to celebrities. “Everything is fine and they will be fine. I think Robin fell victim to this pressure on doctors.”

“Robin’s Wish” which aired this week on yes docu and is also available on yesVOD, focuses as mentioned on the last two years in the life of someone who has been dubbed the “sad clown”. The film was initiated by Susan Schneider, Williams’ third wife and widow, who wanted to show how Robin’s story and heritage can help the world. “We wanted to show what an impact Robin had, what a wonderful person he was and what he really went through towards his death. One of the first major symptoms of this disease is hallucinations – but no one mentioned Robin’s hallucinations, which means he kept them secret. So during The whole production Robin remained a riddle and I learned about it through his friends who were interviewed. ”

One of the interviewees is director Sean Levy, who has worked with Williams on “Crazy Night at the Museum.” It turns out that in the third film in the trilogy, “The Secret of the Tomb” (2014), Levy and the crew noticed that something bad was happening to the comic genius, but kept his dignity and did not report it to the media. “Robin had a hard time remembering lines and he had a hard time playing and everyone was worried about him and didn’t know what was going on with him,” Norwood says. “The fact that these guys were willing to keep secret what happened on the set and for a relatively short period afterwards, was beautiful to me. I see it as a friendly act that says Robin had great meaning for them, even beyond work.

Producer David E. Kelly also participates in the film and reveals Robin’s difficult period, when the two worked together on the series “The Madmen”. “He also noticed that something bad was happening to Robin,” Norwood says, adding, “They agreed to be interviewed for the film and reveal what Robin went through because they believed they could do more for Robin and that his memory would be preserved if the truth came out. They were very brave.”

Robin has struggled all his life with addictions and anxieties. What was the source of these anxieties?
“We need to recognize that genius is a heavy burden. When you are a genius you do not stop processing, thinking and concluding – so you understand in depth the tragedy of life more than others. I think that is also what happened to Robin, although he never let this knowledge transcend his love. To life itself.Robin realized how gloomy and depressing life can be, but he was a man who made tremendous efforts to overcome it.So he had an addiction, but he did not make it the end of his story.He transcended and replaced his addiction to cycling and even joined Alcoholics Anonymous.

“You see in my movie how Robin went from a man who lets anxiety eat him to a person who contributes to society. He used to work with the US military, meet soldiers who have lost limbs and give them some of his energy. “Whoever has similar addictive impulses would contribute to others, instead of coming together and concentrating on himself, the world was a better place.”

Why did you not interview his children – Zachary from his marriage to Valerie and Lardy, Zelda Ray and Cody Allen from his marriage to Marsha Gars?
“Robin’s children refused to take part in the project, and that’s their full right. Robin’s life and death are still a very complex issue. “I don’t know what his children’s position is on the subject, but they have every right to their privacy.”

How did you feel about Susan, whom Robin knew in Apple’s store and who also has a history of addiction? It seems that despite his pain he was happy with her.
“The more I interviewed her the more I realized it was no wonder she was Robin’s partner. She’s an amazing woman and a talented artist. Her landscape paintings are amazing. She has a big heart, and her laughter is amazing. I think it’s something Robin really liked about her, that he could “To make her laugh. Susan is also terribly intelligent and with a big heart. I can find a lot of reasons why they were a successful couple.”

The movie is called “Robin’s Wish.” What was the wish?
“One of the interviews I did with Susan was especially difficult for her. After that interview she decided to go to one of the places in the house that belonged to Robin, where she did not dare to touch after his death: the bedside table. She opened one of the drawers and found a book. Susan hoped to find something Robin wrote In one of the pages or in the margins, so she opened the book and found something he had written: “I want to dispel the fear from the hearts of others.” Susan called me that evening and said, ‘Listen, I found the book with this quote.’ I came to her immediately and said that he must be photographed. This sentence made me understand who Robin really was. I imagine how he lay in bed at night next to his wife and wrote the things as a kind of silent prayer to the universe – in my opinion there is no more sincere portrait of a man than is depicted from his actions at such a moment. He could write that he wanted to make ten more films, that he wanted a stand-up show or a line of cornflakes. But he said he wanted others to be less afraid.

“The fact that Robin wrote it at the age of sixty indicates that this is what he wanted to do with the time he had left, but it is also very easy to look and say that this is what he always did. He was the genie who made us all laugh and forgot from our hearts the troubles in Aladdin. “Will Hunting’s made us understand the immense pain of a man who has lost his wife. All of these roles have given us tools to help us, hopefully, fear less on the way to the end. His genius and energies have all been invested in dispelling that fear, and that is in my opinion his beautiful legacy.”

Norwood believes Williams longed for a diagnosis, to understand what was happening to him. “Sean Levy said that during the filming he got calls from Robin at two, three, four at night, in which he wondered: ‘Does the scene work at all? Am I okay?’ And Sean reassured him, “Yeah, sure, you’re fine.” But what Sean found out was that he saw a man who was no longer himself – and that Robin thought there was no forgiveness for that. For all of us, so that we can be less afraid, so that we can smile. Robin’s wish was to understand what happened to him. My film brings more people to the diagnosis before they reach Robin’s situation. This is the last gift Robin gives us: he informs us all about The disease and pushes us to delve into it, to see if there is anyone around us with similar symptoms or someone who is deteriorating on the same slope and say, ‘I heard there was such a thing as dementia with Gofi Levy, maybe ask the doctors to check if you have it.’ ”

And Norwood has a wish, too. “My biggest hope is that after people watch the movie, they will want to see Robin’s movies like ‘The Birdcage,’ ‘Mrs. Doubtfire,’ ‘The Story of Will Hunting, and’ Hawk. ‘After his death, many pushed his movies aside because of death. And the media narrative left a sense of ‘we do not know who he really was.’ One of the things I talked about with other comedians is the idea of ​​’cloud of sadness’ – someone who can be happy and energetic in front of the camera but in reality is sad and depressed. Robin was not like that. That we could remind people and refresh who Robin really was was significant to me. ”

And just before we part, Norwood discovers that he is especially happy that the film is being broadcast in Israel. “Robin is not a Jew and was educated according to the values ​​of the Episcopal Church, but he really loved Judaism, and he had quite a few Jewish friends – Billy Crystal, for example. Robin also had a great imitation of a Jew from New York. I think he had a real closeness to the Jewish people. “Therefore, it is special to me that now his fans in Israel can see the film about him.”